Thanks very much to everyone who reviewed, it was the just the kick I needed to get my lazy butt out of bed and get back into writing. This chapter is a little choppy, and it doesn't really go anywhere, but I promise that the next one will be better! Really! Cross my die and hope to heart... or something like that.
And as inashosetai reminded me, I forgot to specify much about Inuyasha's features. Yes, he has his golden eyes, so don't die on me! Silver hair and gold eyes, just no doggy ears. He does, however, have artificially sharpened nails and teeth to resemble claws and fangs, because it's part of his kingdom's culture. But that doesn't come into the story until later, so don't worry too much about that.
Dis-clay-mur Time! I don't own Inuyasha or Kagome, or any of those other characters. But I do own Kengou and Miss Teishu! ... Even though they play only tiny parts... Damn!
Chapter Two: Exchange
Perched comfortably on top of one of the thick stone walls that encompassed the castle and separated the fortress grounds from the surrounding town, Kagome watched the soggy caravan stir to life and meander glumly out of the castle gate and through the buildings of the waking settlement.
The rain had dissipated to a faint drizzle and then to little more than a mist by the time the little procession was out of sight, and the town came a little more alive. Of course, there had already been people working since dawn, and people in the streets and in the market square. A little rain wasn't going to stop the people of Rubrica, no sir!
Kagome yawned and stretched, kicking bare feet lazily in the damp air for a moment before standing. The leather breeches and wool shirt she was wearing were soaked, but she hardly seemed to care. She did, however, take a moment to undo a corner of the very large bundle sitting beside her, and check that the contents of the package were dry. Satisfied with her inspection, she re-tied the bundle and tossed it into the shrubbery at the base of the castle wall.
Her uncle, while encouraging her antics within the castle, didn't so much approve of her going into the town without an escort. Well, it wasn't her fault that she went out so often. They shouldn't have planted that elm tree right there where someone could accidentally make a rope ladder, and throw it up to the lowest branch (fifteen feet off the ground), and climb to the top, and jump onto the wall, and leap to the ground on the other side. Poor planning, that was it. Not her fault at all.
Kagome stepped off the wall and dropped like a stone into the bushes below. The first time she had done that, she had almost broken her leg, but she had long since learned to roll with the impact, and came up a little muddy but no worse for the wear. Retrieving her large bundle and whistling a repetitive little tune, the princess swaggered off into town. No one took much notice of her. What was one more errand-boy or apprentice with a load for his master?
She knew the roads of the town as well as she did the corridors of the castle, but she took the long route, stopping for breakfast at a market stall selling fresh bread and game meat, and taking a short detour to see how the construction of the new theater was coming. Eventually, though, she made it to the long, winding expanse of Elderberry Street, where she stopped at the Doyadoya Inn and entered through the back door.
The normal comforting chaos of a busy kitchen greeted her. A plump woman gutting, scaling, and slicing fresh trout seemed to recognize Kagome, and nodded a greeting. Kagome waved happily in reply and quickly maneuvered her way out of the kitchen and through a swinging door that led to a narrow staircase. Taking the steps two or three at a time, in a matter of seconds she was through another door and on the second floor.
"Look out!"
A sickle-shaped blade whirred over her head and buried itself several inches in the wood frame of the doorway, just a few centimeters above her. Kagome turned and looked up at the quivering blade with surprising calmness for just having narrow missed getting a rather deadly haircut. The blade was attached to a chain, which was in turn attached to a young dark-haired boy with an expression of horror on his pale face.
"Sorry, your Highness!" he squeaked. Mechanically, he jerked his arm back, and the blade was wrenched from the woodwork, spinning through the air for a moment before the boy caught it by the handle and followed through with a well-executed sweep of his arm. "Sorry! Sorry sorry!"
Kagome smiled in a carefree manner and waved her hand dismissively as he stammered apologies. "It's okay Kohaku, I'm quite unharmed. Nice throw. And don't call me that, you know I hate it."
"Oh. Right. Sorry. And thanks."
"Though, why are you practicing inside?"
"I hit a customer last time I practiced outside. He got mad and made Miss Teishu give him back his money for the night, though he wasn't really hurt – I just cut off his pony tail was all. The lady he was courting thought it was real funny and laughed until she could hardly breathe. Sis said it was just his pride that was hurt."
"Certainly seems like he overreacted a bit. Speaking of your sister, is she in?"
"Yeah, she's in her room," said Kohaku, a grin spreading across his features as he added "with a booyyy."
"A boy? You sure we're both talking about the same person here?"
"See for yourself," Kohaku challenged, grinning wider and swinging his weapon in lazy circles. With a measured flick of his wrist, a dust bunny rolling erratically across the floor was cleanly split in two.
Hefting her bundle, Kagome crossed the room in a few long strides and paused at her friend's door. She set her burden down and pressed an ear to the closed door, her eyes widening in surprise as she heard muffled grunts and one low growl. Tentatively, she pushed at the door, half-expecting it to be locked. Instead it swung easily open.
Inside, seated at a small table in two rickety-looking chairs, a brown-haired woman with a ponytail and a black-haired man in black and purple monk's robes were arm-wrestling. The woman looked almost bored, while sweat beaded on the monk's forehead.
"Ah, Kagome," the woman said, looking up. As if it required no more effort than swatting a fly, she snapped her arm down, wrenching the monk's arm to the side and flat onto the table, before standing and smiling at her guest. "You made it."
"I come bearing gifts," Kagome said, picking up her bundle and tossing the large package at her friend, who caught it easily, and even used the momentum of the impact to do a little spin on her heel, just for show.
Miroku grimly rubbed his wrist with an injured look on his face. "Ouch. My pride."
Sango ignored him, setting the bundle down on the bed and undoing the bindings, then tugging the wrappings away to expose a jumble of multifarious fabrics. "There must be at least a dozen seamstresses busy every hour of every day to keep you stocked with these," Sango prodded jokingly, picking up a long, embroidered gown of flowing blue silk and examining it with an expert eye. A pearly charmeuse stole, a floaty periwinkle robe, a red velvet dress with satiny trim, and other masterpieces of the seamstress and tailor's realm were similarly unfurled and examined.
When Sango had finished with her assessments, she turned back to find Kagome with one hand around Miroku's throat, pinning the unlucky monk to the wall, the other pulled back to punch him. Sango got the feeling that the events leading up to the situation had involved Miroku's hand and a rather personal part of Kagome's anatomy.
"Kagome!" Sango shrieked, leaping across the room to grab her friend's arm as she brought it back to swing. "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm going to punch him, of course!" Kagome snarled, as Miroku squeaked out a weak "thank you" at Sango and clawed at the surprising iron-grip that the young princess had on his neck.
Sango shook her head. "I know, but not like that." She received blank looks from both of them. Sango sighed and shifted her grip to her friend's fist, where she expertly re-arranging Kagome's curled fingers. "Don't hit with your thumb inside your fist, you might break it," she instructed, speaking with the calm, patient air of a teacher addressing her student. "And strike with the flat, here, not with the knuckles." Releasing Kagome's fist and stepping back, Sango nodded towards the stricken monk.
"Okay, now hit him."
----------
Ah hour later, Kagome was scrambling up the side of the castle wall, finding small but suitable foot- and hand-holds in the age-pitted stone and crumbling mortar. Tied haphazardly to her back was a lumpy-looking bundle similar to the one she had left with, but smaller.
Reaching the top of the wall, Kagome pulled herself over and onto an outstretched branch of that oh-so-convenient elm tree. Half-dropping, half-climbing through the branches until they stopped, she wrapped her arms around the thick trunk and slid the last fifteen feet to the ground. Her clothes had mostly air-dried by then, but the slide had soaked the front of her shirt all over again. She didn't seem to mind. It was only clothes.
Humming a few bars of some half-forgotten tune, Kagome meandered off across the castle grounds, slipped through an unlocked side door, and sprinted through the dizzying maze of hallways with familiar ease. She darted easily past several servants and a small band of flirting courtiers, and one unfamiliar form in damp red garments. She grabbed one of the person's long, trailing sleeves as she passed, yanking expertly at the fabric to spin the person around as she continued running. She didn't pause to see the outcome of her little manipulation, but sprinted on to the end of the hallway, turned a perilous corner with arms flailing to keep her balance, and vaulted up a spiraling flight of stairs.
Inuyasha, lost in both the castle as well as his head, was jerked unceremoniously from his dark, brooding thoughts as an unexpected force was executed from his left, pushing his body into a wobbling twirl on the ball of his foot. He stumbled as the spin was completed, and a nearby wall caught him by his forehead. He reeled back, grabbing at his poor head and spitting curses to make a sailor blush, and toppled against a small round table set next to the opposite wall. The lovely blue-green vase on top of the table shuddered, wobbled, and dropped. Inuyasha snatched at it too late, and the porcelain urn shattered on the stone floor.
The young prince quickly gathered his feet under him and regained his balance. He stood for a moment in front of the scattered fragments of porcelain, before looking both ways and walking quickly away, with hands behind his back, eyes on the ceiling, whistling, trying his best to look as nonchalant as humanly possible. When a few corridors had separated him and the scene of the crime, he slipped through the next door he came to and blinked in the sudden glare of sunlight.
When his eyes had sufficiently adjusted to the light, he realized that he had wandered out onto the grounds. He turned to go back through the door he had just exited, and found it to be locked.
Damn.
Well, at least it had stopped raining. Everything was still damp, but the sun was out. And the air had that faint, pleasant smell that comes after rain, the ancient scent of distant hills and fresh grass. Inuyasha tugged at his soaked clothes, the many-layered regalia suddenly feeling far too close and heavy. For all the roomy spaces the voluminous garments offered, he felt like he was wearing a straightjacket.
Snorting at the world in general, he tugged at ties of the outermost layer and wigged out of the heavy fabric, letting it drop to the ground. He quickly shed a few more layers, and one by one the extravagant garments fell to the ground, each with a satisfyingly wet squelch. The embroidery and brocade of the expensive regalia was lost in the mud as Inuyasha stamped down on the fine clothes with a booted foot. He was soon left with only a fine but simple white tunic and voluminous but lightweight red trousers.
Free of the cloying attire and feeling much like a snake that had just shed an uncomfortable skin, Inuyasha kicked off his fine leather boots, took a moment to tie the wide cuffs of his trousers around his ankles, and set off at a happy run across the expansive castle grounds. Well, maybe this month wouldn't be too bad. The castle and the grounds weren't as big as those of his home, but they were still pretty big. He just might be able to go the whole time without ever running into anyone, especially that psycho princess they had sent him here to meet.
He veered off towards the outer wall, where he figured there would be less people, and after a few minutes slowed to a trot. He had come to the edge of a garden, not as big as the big garden he had passed by the kitchens, but still rather large and looking very well-tended. No vegetables, he noticed. And the flowers that were there were small and scarce, looking like they were there simply because they had happened to come with the plant. It was an herb garden, not one for eating or for looks.
He didn't understand why an herb garden would be planted so far from the kitchens, but what confused him the most was the big iron cauldron. It was set near the one tree in the garden, so that depending on the time of day, it could either be in sun or shade. It was big enough to hold a full-grown cow, or comfortably fit two or three people. There were about six inches of water in the bottom, more than it could have collected during the rain. It was definitely being used for something, though he was damned if he knew what. To his eyes, just another example of the inherent strangeness of the people of Rubrica.
Shrugging, Inuyasha jogged out of the garden and took off at a run in a random direction, reveling in the feel of the wind in his face and the mud under his feet, which had already stained his trousers from mid-calf down. He had just settled into a comfortable pace, rounding a corner of the castle, when a servant flagged him down.
Slowing to a trot and then reluctantly halting, he put on his best You-Just-Interupted-Me-In-The-Middle-Of-Something-Very-Important-face as the man hurried towards him.
"Your rooms have been prepared, my Prince," the servant managed, slightly out of breath, as he reached the annoyed-looking Inuyasha. "If the Prince would please follow me..."
----------
Humming to herself, Kagome sauntered down the long corridor leading to her room. A long time ago, she would have had to stop every four or five steps to wave off some helpful servant or worried guard, but the castle staff tended now to keep their distance from the young princess unless she made it clear that she required assistance.
She had just reached her favorite verse in the tune when she kicked open her door and entered her room, startling a few maids who had been working fervently to clean the room and replace the wardrobe contents while the princess was away. Kagome grinned maniacally. She grabbed a fireplace poker leaning by the door and charged at the nervous maids, who shrieked and scattered, dropping brooms and piles of clothing as they scrambled for the door.
"Back, foul demons!" she shouted, jumping up on top of the bed and swinging the poker like a sword at the fleeing women. "Oh back, vicious harpies! To the winds with ye! Avast!" When all four of them had fled the room, Kagome laughed out loud and tossed the poker into a corner of the room. She spun around and flopped onto the bed, giggling, then sprang up and skipped quite giddily across the floor to where one of them had dropped a pile of woolen tunics.
"They think I don't notice," she mused to herself, picking up the little stack of shirts and opening her wardrobe, where several fortunes' worth of new fine clothes had been hung in place of her favored attire. "You'd think they'd get tired after a while, replacing everything. Not like I'm complaining," she remarked to the empty room, taking out a sea-green gown at random and holding it up to the light. "Sango will make good use of these."
Humming again, she shook her bundle from her back and opened it. Within lay a good quantity of simple but well-made tunics and breeches and trousers, with a few pairs of sturdy boots and a couple pairs of light sandals. Kagome pushed the beautiful, multicolored garments to the side of the large wardrobe and began to hang up her new duds. Every few days she would take a load of the fine clothes that they insisted on sneaking into her closet, and trade them off to Sango for some good-quality 'commoner-rags', as some of the court called them when they thought that the young princess couldn't hear. Sango recycled or remade many of the clothes that Kagome gave her, nicely supplementing the Inn's income. Sango always said it was the least she could do for Miss Teishu, who had taken her and her brother in when they had found themselves without a home or parents, several years ago.
Finishing her task, Kagome changed out of her muddy, wet clothes and into dry trousers and a short-sleeved tunic, and hauled out her Box. The Box, a locked chest which she kept in the back of the wardrobe, contained the majority of the materials for her favorite little tricks and pranks. Kagome unlocked it, lifted the lid, and looked into her little treasure chest. Ah, the possibilities...
Wasn't today the day that that new prince was supposed to arrive? Why, indeed it was. How nice.
Now just where was her new little playmate?
And... curtain drop! Yes, this chapter is done. I know it wasn't that great, but I'm just getting back into writing after a very long time of... well, not writing. The hiatus lasted longer than I expected, thanks to my inherent lazy-ass tendencies, topped by a very inconvenient and painful full-scale viral invasion of my lungs.
And as you all can probably tell, I am probably one of the least-motivated people in the world, so you guys really need to remind me! Review, yell at me, hassle me, ect. until I stop blaming my lungs and get my lazy butt back on the computer. Or rather, on the chair in front of the computer. Sitting on the computer would just be rather uncomfortable, not to mention there's probably a friendly but stern warning against such behavior in clear, proffessional script in the user manuel.
Oh, important note! Pret has called to my attention a few seconds ago that when Kohaku is talking about slicing the nameless man's ponytail off, he says he made Miss Teishu "give him back his money for the night". Pret has pointed out that some readers might interpret this wrong, so I'll just make a note here: Miss Teishu is an innkeeper. Not a...uh... purveyor of negotiable affection. The "money for the night" was for his room, not for... other things. Okay? Okay.
And I'd just like to say that you guys who read and reviewed this are really all so great. Thank you very much. And now I am off to write out Kagome's devious plots for her unlucky guest. Muahahaha... -dramatic exit- (exit foiled by badly-placed skateboard at the top of the stairs)